Beer stings business owner

Board receives challenge to citation

By Elwin Green
Diversity Institute Fellow

08.13.04

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A month ago, Richard Rollins applied for a new beer license because he had recently formed a new corporation to manage the store he owns at 1200 Old Hickory Blvd.

A week ago, the store — Rollins Market — was cited during a sting operation for selling beer to a minor.

Rollins knew the citation could jeopardize his application, so he appeared at Thursday's meeting of the Metro Beer Board with a videotape he said brought the sting itself into question. Board members declined to view the tape but gave him a Sept. 22 hearing date.

Board chair Gary M. Brown said Rollins will be allowed to present the video at that hearing. In the meantime, his license has been extended.

The Rollins case was among more than two dozen heard by the board at Thursday's meeting. His charge that the sting operation was bogus stood out in an otherwise routine meeting.

According to Rollins, a young woman acting as an informant for Metro Police visited his store on Aug. 6. The clerk who was working that day carded the woman and said the year of birth on her I.D. was 1980, Rollins said. The clerk sold her one can of beer, and an hour later, she returned with police officers, who cited the store for selling beer to a minor. When the clerk protested he had confirmed the informant's adult status by checking her I.D., she produced a different I.D. card showing 1985 as her year of birth, Rollins said.

He also said the store's surveillance video shows the clerk examining the original I.D. for a full fifteen seconds — long enough to be certain about the year of birth.

"I already fired a 19-year employee who never had so much as a traffic ticket," because she got caught selling beer to a minor in an earlier sting, Rollins said. This time, "I'm standing by my guy."

The board, which meets twice monthly, had 80 complaints of sales to minors on Thursday's agenda. Nearly half of them were first offenses, for which business owners can waive a hearing by paying a $1,500 fine.

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